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Arab Heritage in Malta

The history of Malta includes several centuries of Arab presence that were very influential in what its heritage today is, including language, and place names.

History of Arabs in Malta

From 870 CE to 1091 CE, the islands were almost exclusively Muslim by religion and Arab by language. Even after the Norman conquest, a significant Muslim segment in the society remained till the 13th century, since the initial Norman did not converted the population. This is similar to Sicily, where the Normans allowed the Muslims to remain Muslims for some time, and not forced to convert. For example, Al-Idrisi was a Muslim Arab nobleman who worked in the court of Roger, and wrote his geography book and named it The Book of Roger (Al-Kitab Al Rujari الكتاب الروجري).

Eventually the Muslim presence in Malta ceased to exist, perhaps after it came under the Spanish Empire.

Language of Malta

Their language remained Arabic though, and their family names remained Arabic, as well as most place names. Being non-Muslims the language slowly drifted to what it is today with heavy influence from Italian and Sicilian.

Why does the Maltese language remain spoken today and not vanish like Arabic in Iberia? I think that the more active suppression of Arabic by the Spanish authorities and the church is to blame here.

Place Names

Also, monuments and place names such as Hagar Qim are Arabic, in this case a "Stone" in Arabic. Other place names include Mdina (The City), Flifla (pepper), Rabat (camp), Birzebbuga (Bir = well), Gzira (Island or peninsula), Marsa (port), Ghar (cave), Qala (Fort), Gharb (west), il-Balluta (The oak), Triq (Way/Road), Isqaq (Lane), ...etc. A list of local councils of Malta reveal more.

It is interesting that the Maltese say that Zebbug and Birzebugga are derived from the name for olives, while there is a town called Zejtun زيتون, which is the Arabic name for olives.

If one looks at the Attard anthem, one can see the extent of Arabic in it which sounds like a north African dialect.

Dissociation from anything Arab

Although the facts are there, some Maltese genealogists go out of their way to affirm that the Maltese are European and Christian, and have nothing to do with Arabs. The author, Charles Said Vassallo claims descent from Cem, the younger brother of the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II, who after a period of failed civil war, seeked refuge in Cairo, then Rhodes, then in Europe with the Pope.

This attempt to dissociate the Maltese from Arab influence is similar to the phobia in Iberia in the 1500s and afterwards, from anything to do with Moors and Islam, be it dress, language, customs, taking a bath, circumcision, ...etc.

This is an all too common phenomenon where people would like to stop history at a certain point for their own bias and ignore all other eras in history, religion, language and culture.

Closing Anecdote

A common saying in Egypt today is : "Like a call for [Muslim] prayer in Malta زي اللي بيأذن في مالطة", which alludes to the fact that no Muslims are left there, and hence no one will answer the call. This must be an old saying indeed, given that this happened many centuries ago.

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Dont trouble yourself with petty arguments with those whom are clueless and even ignorant.
Saliba s predate islam. The family's origins are 700 years before Mohamad was even born. and Saliba's are of Spartan Royal Origins. We have our family tree traced back over 2400years back and its purely Christian from 67AD
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saliba_(family)
While others cant go back 3 generations without wondering and guessing were they came from...
Its not possibly to have a muslim Saliba... its not about Jesus Christ its About the Crucifix, Saliba means of the Crucifix and that conflicts with their faith...
Saliba's became Christian over 1950 years ago. the same year the Bible was put together and Christians were called Christians and were in power
Ful positions from back then and have therfor played a very important role in the establishment of Christianity

Dear friend,
I beg of you, Maltese friends. We respect your faith. There are crows of Christian Arabs in the world who, by the way, call our common God "Allah" (or "Ala" as their non-Arab Maltese counter-parts put it).
From a Maltese perspective, I am afraid the point about saliba/crucifix-related is not very convincing since we have other Maltese words borrowed from (muslim) Arabic: for example, "ramdan" for "Fast", and "miled" for Christmas, etc.
Therefore, the key to the problem is, again and again, the language. Interestingly, a Tunisian re-searcher has recently read in colloquial Arabic, and in less than 1 minute, the oldest and most com-plex document of the Maltese literature: the Cantilena. You can listen to it in MP3 sound.

The article is somewhat simple, childlike in its understanding of the complexity of the history of Malta, its people and the Maltese language.

Yes Maltese, Malti is semitic derived from the people who spoke a North African version of Arabic. Not many would deny that. North African Arabic is not understandable by speakers of Modern Standard Arabic. It should gain its own status as a language rather than as a dialect. The version of North African Arabic that come to Malta can from Sicily, it was a form of Siculo-Arabic. Malti is twice removed from Arabic by its derivation from North African Arabic base and as used in Sicily. Without the Romance and other non semitic words in Malti, it would not be understood by any Arabic speakers even from North Africa.

The Maltese history goes a lot further back than the brief advent of the Arabs from the 7th century. There are buildings in Malta that are older than the pyramids or Stonehenge in England. The Phoenicians and other ancient peoples were in Malta. The "Arabs" were just one of many foreigners who sojourned in Malta.

Maltese people have taken a foreign tongue, the Siculo-Arabic of Sicily, changed it and made it their own. It owes nothing to Arabic or Sicilian or Italian. It is its own language.

As for religion, the people of Spain, Sicily and Malta were Christians before the muslims came to their countries and have returned to that religion. It is interesting that most of the muslim world in the Middle East and Turkey were once Christian like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. Arabic and Islam are not even Middle Eastern but belong to a small part of the Arabian Peninsula.

I'd like to structure this systematically, so sorry if it sounds a bit impersonal
Firstly, 'arab' is not the same as 'arabic-speaking'. Most arabic speaking people of today are not genetically arab. So southern Italy is not different in this; they were not arabs genetically of course - at least not most of them - but they adopted arabic as a language and so came to be known as arabs - like everyone else who did so

Secondly people speaking arabic dialects are almost certain to understand modern standard arabic - even if not fully. The difference is a bit like english now and shakespearean though not even as severe as that. It is not by any means another language - we understand even each others dialects if we speak slowly, and can choose not to say certain local nouns and speak normally to each other. And in fact what I've read of the maltese language's arabic content is closer to standard arabic (افصح لغةً) than normal egyptian arabic.

Nobody is trying to say malta is ONLY arab, same as no-one said that egypt is ONLY arab. What this article is highlighting is that the links with arabic are greater than most people would realise, due to historic reasons.

Maltese is NOT a dialect of arabic of course, but not because its structure has changed. In fact the structure is close to being exactly the same. What makes it its own language is that there are so many loanwords.

Islam and Christianity are not by any means a measure of where someone's from. They are divine religions, and so can be found around the world. There has also been in the mediterranean region a tolerance between the two religions which people overlook due to the occasional intolerance. So let's leave that out.

im sry to dissappoint u but LEBANON is still christian!! not for long maybe but Lebanon is still a christian country with a majority muslim population living in Lebanon.but outside of lebanon christian lebs have a majority of atleast 3:1

Whilst neither an academic nor capable of fluent Maltese owing to an upbringing and lifetime spent outside of Malta, simple observation of language, attitudes and often cultural activities increasingly convinces me that although our bloodlines have been broadened over the generations by the inputs of Normans, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and as in my case Bavarian(German)let alone the British and to a much lesser extent British Colonial subject nations, especially Egyptian and Chinese a small colony of whom existed until very recently in the naval dock area, fundamentally in our language and family names traces of arab/aramaic remain. I recall that following a recent popular film 'The Life of Christ' in which much of the script was aramaic, a number of village Maltese said they preferred listening to the soundtrack rather than reading the English sub-titles. Once whilst in Bahrain I got into conversation with a group of Iraqi's from a district in the Upper Euphrates and felt able to understand much of what they said in their dialect. (Incidentally could the 'Dilmun' of Bahrain have any connection with the 'Delmon' of Malta?) I had similar experiences in Khor Fakkan and Fujeirah in the 1970's. Abdulmoisin Al-Mutlaq from Eastern Province Saudi Arabia, whom I knew well and who knew a number of Maltese then living in The Kingdom, strongly believed Maltese was heavily influenced by dialects still current in parts of Lebanon, Syria and Northern Iraq. On an entirely separate but perhaps historically interesting track, in the 1920's my father visited fishing villages in South Wales (UK), probably Pembroke. Using his Maltese he was both understood and able to communicate with the fishermen. He recalled they said he was the first 'outsider' ever to do so. They claimed to be the descendents of 'Mediterranean Traders' so perhaps at least in the confines of language at least there could perhaps be some truth in believing Near and Middle Eastern dialectic influences remain strong in isolated outposts such as Malta where for the vast majority of it's indigenous people travel outside of their homeland was impossible till well into the 20th. century.

Dear Sir,
maltese semitic religious terminology resembles has many in common to christian arabic(ex qassis,raheb,qrar,tqarbin,titlit,xbin,dejr,isqof,knisja,Ghid il-Milied etc) although some muslim influence such as the words Randan, Ghasar and possibly Gilwa can also be found.
As you may be aware Arab speaking christians are a diverse group.
It would be interesting if someone makes a profound study of our religious terminology.